


Falling Slow

by GalahadWilder



Category: Miraculous Ladybug, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir, miraculous
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-19 07:16:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12405633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalahadWilder/pseuds/GalahadWilder
Summary: The story of how Alya Cesaire fell for Nino Lahiffe.





	Falling Slow

Alya Cesaire had long accepted the fact that Marinette Dupain-Cheng was unreliable. That was the price to be paid for genius; sometimes, you took second place to whatever was driving your friend today. That was why, as amazing as Marinette was, as in love with her as Alya had been, she knew they’d have been terrible together. It wasn’t her best friend’s obsession with Adrien that caused Alya to move on - though it certainly contributed; no, it was the realization that she and Marinette would have never been enough for each other.

It was when Alya finally noticed Nino Lahiffe that she realized that genius wasn’t always inconstant.

Nino wasn’t like Marinette. She was a fireworks display, a series of brilliant blasts of color and energy into the sky, but each lasting only an instant, each completely different from the last. Nino was the night sky in the summertime, constant and comforting and glowing with energy, poetry and mystery both ancient and new. Alya hadn’t know what he was capable of, had thought him the blackness between the stars, a slacker and an idiot, until he first focused the slow intensity of his attention on her, and Alya had realized that she’d never noticed the moon that was Nino Lahiffe before in the glare of Adrien Agreste’s sunshine. Nino’s passion wasn’t like hers, or like Marinette’s, hot and obsessive and as fragile as a flame; Nino’s was warm, and quiet, and powerful as the ocean tide.

When Nino saw her, and she saw Nino, she finally learned what it was to be enough for someone. And to have someone be enough for her.

Nino was a constant. He didn’t light her up, because he didn’t need to: she was fire enough for both of them. He kept her grounded, kept her sane, kept her from burning herself out, and she made sure to keep him on his toes. They balanced, like Yin and Yang, fire and ice. Until suddenly they didn’t.

Nino started disappearing on her, making excuses, his attention wavering for the first time since she’d known him. He didn’t answer texts, he was awake at odd hours, he literally vanished out from under her on more than one occasion. The one constant in her life had become inconstant.

She confronted him about it, at length. Barely held herself back from screaming. Saw the tears welling up in the corner of his eyes, but she had to tell him how he was hurting her. And he saw, and he heard her, and he knew. And he did something that Marinette had never done:

He told her the truth.

He showed her the bracelet on his wrist, introduced her to the tiny green creature that lived in his hat. He transformed in front of her, and one of the heroes of Paris kneeled before her, her hand clasped between his, begging for forgiveness.

She yanked him to his feet and into a kiss.

Nino’s attention no longer wavered; instead, they shared in the new part of his life, and she did for him what he had always done for her: kept him grounded, kept him safe. And they were balanced again, like they alway had been, like they always needed to be.

When Alya recieved the necklace, and met an orange creature who looked a great deal like the green one, she knew just who to call.

That night, the fox and the turtle roamed together across the streets of Paris, and all was as it was always meant to be.


End file.
